70% of Millennials say they are likely to vote socialist

All Englands Skies said:

Pure capitalism makes people into "slaves" of their bosses, that people can do killer shifts, for very little pay and all the other bosses do that same. The equal playing field thing is a myth, while hard work does get people further, there is also ruthlessness and sheer luck.

Also those with the wealth and power "rig" the playing field, so only a few from the bottom manage to win the "game"

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But hard work does get people further. It's an equal playing field for all. Not everyone has the talent, the ability or the desire to move ahead. I've been in the job market for around 40 years now. I've seen where many people don't have the desire to move ahead. I've seen many people without the talent to move ahead. And the "move ahead" jobs are limited. Not everyone can move ahead, because there are not "move ahead" jobs for everyone. It's called life. Not everyone gets to be an NFL quarterback earning multi-million dollars.

RDKirk said:

So why are there Christians starving? Don't pretend that the need is not known or knowable.

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Where are Christians starving and how do we get the food to them?

rjs330 said:

What about food. Should grocery stores be able to profit on food? How about housing. It's a fundamental right to have a roof over your head for you and your family. Should people be able to profit on housing? What about cars? Should people be able to profit on cars? In most states there are rural people who wouldn't be able to go to work without cars to be able to earn a living for their families.

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I'm talking about the parasites that take something and insert themselves into the formula to make a buck.

rjs330 said:

Do you have a problem with doctors going into the field they want to?

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No, again just the parasites that use doctors and their fields to make a buck. Think of them in the same light as critics, no talent themselves other than to make a living off of others work.

rjs330 said:

It feeds the human desire to be free. To work hard and enjoy the fruits of their labor. To provide for their family.

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Then why not go back to a time when communities thrived, along with towns and rural life, before everything got compacted rather than allowed to thrive and grow according to demand. People shared in the wealth. Along comes a parasitic disease unwilling to share, that grew like a cancer until the average business could no longer survive in competition. That's not progress. That is greed.

timothyu said:

Which goes right back to not if they can't afford it but are more than qualified. The 'haves' have an advantage specifically when it comes to loans.

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Maybe,but it's a false argument. My wife was as poor as a church mouse and got loans to go to school. Other members of my family and friends had no wealth, but we're able to go to school. My son in law is African American from a dirt poor family, but he's attending college. The opportunity is there.

rjs330 said:

Where are Christians starving and how do we get the food to them?

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Well, let's start in the US and let's start with a scriptural method.

In my life as a military brat and then having a long military career myself, I've been a member of a good number of congregations halfway around the world and back again.

Out of all of them, only one pastor, Bill Stonebraker of Calvary Chapel of Honolulu, kept an active list of the widows and single mothers of his congregation. He did this because in scripture--both OT and NT--the Lord harps again and again and again on the importance of making sure widows and the fatherless (children of single mothers) are taken care of. The Lord is unrelenting on this--it's the specific reason He explicitly states for allowing Judea to fall into captivity.

And the management method for dealing with this is to keep a list of them. Yet, it's almost never done (Now that I think of it, I wonder if it might, however, be a general practice of Salvation Army congregations).

How can a pastor say that he's taking care of making sure the congregational widows and fatherless are okay if he doesn't even know who they are? Saying "we have a food bank" doesn't answer the mail, because that might not be their problem. Or I've seen congregations make use of their food banks a distasteful and onerous process ("Just how poor are you...really?").

That's a significant problem in the US: "Just how poor are you, really?" That's because intertwined into American Christianity is the idea that the poor are poor because they deserve it--that they lack righteousness, or lack faith. "God would have helped you, if you'd have helped yourself." Americans equate wealth with virtue and poverty with vice.

But that's not the way Jesus behaved. Jesus understood that the economic systems of the world are predatory in their very nature, and because of that, "The poor you will have with you always." There will be poor--probably the vast majority of them--who are poor through no inherent fault of their own. It's the way of the world.

I'm supporting a poor congregation in India. Years ago, when I learned that the average Christian congregation in India has a budget of only $1,000 a year, I realized I had an easy ability to make a big impact, and I found a congregation to support. We have the Internet. It's not that hard.

rjs330 said:

Maybe,but it's a false argument. My wife was as poor as a church mouse and got loans to go to school. Other members of my family and friends had no wealth, but we're able to go to school. My son in law is African American from a dirt poor family, but he's attending college. The opportunity is there.

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I agree but even student loans need collateral.

Speedwell said:

No, I stick to the subject, Capitalism is an economic arrangement in which the productive capital of the country is in private hands. Period. When you go on about personal freedom and pursuing dreams you are turning it into a crypto-religious ideology. Certainly those noble goals are possible under capitalism, but so is slavery and oppression. There is no necessary connection with capitalism to either of those states. What makes it possible for capitalism to harbor personal freedom is something else distinct from capitalism, and that is a free democratic society.

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Here we go again with the crypto-religious stuff. I don't get it. There's no religion involved. When you put capitol in the hands of the individual you have provided freedom. What you use the freedom for is up to you in capitalism. It may not be good, such as having slaves, or polluting the water. But it's still freedom. There is no religion involved. Freedom is at the heart of capitalism.

Capitalism means freedom

Ken-1122 said:

Of all the socialist systems of past or present that you know of, when has the workers, not the government; owned and controlled the means of production?

Two guys open a business, they work the business, they own the business which means the workers own and control the means of production of that business. This sounds like capitalism; not socialism to me.

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If the two guys have debts to a bank, in the form of a loan, for instance, they don't really own the business except in a nominal sense. They are still working for the bank, at least until they pay off the loans.

Continuation.

rambot said:

I DO keep looking at what the rich have.

And I ask myself: Do they need it? Is it a benefit to the economic system AND society as a whole?

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Who are you to decide what somebody else needs? Do you need all the money you have? Is your money a benefit to the economic system and society as a whole? How dare you insist someone else do more than you.

rambot said:

It SEEMS like I'm focussing on what the rich have because ultimately, the rich are the solution to the problem.

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Says who? You??? Are you God now? Why can’t YOU be the solution to the problem? If they are doing more than you (and by taxes alone, I’ve got a feeling they are) who are you to judge them?

rambot said:

Trickledown economics essentially FORCES the rich to be the solution to the problem. They are just not solving the problem have have been simply profiting off of it for 40 years almost now.

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How has the rich profited from people being poor?

rambot said:

Tell me: How are the bottom 10% supposed to get more money? Should they become more shrewd investors? lulz.

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How am I supposed to become a pro basketball player? How am I supposed to become a rock star? Perhaps I should realize not everybody is cut out to be a pro ball player, or a rock star; and perhaps you should realize not everybody is cut out to be rich.

rambot said:

The ONLY way they get richer is if their bosses pay more; so again, look to the people with more money.

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The quickest route to failure is to insist somebody else has to change their behavior in order for you to succeed, because when you place the responsibility of your success outside of your control, you have little motivation to even try.

rambot said:

And I already answered that question:
The poor are quantifiably NOT better off:

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I didn’t say quantifiably better off, I said better off and I think you know they are you just don’t want to admit it.

rambot said:

What you see as "average wages increasing", you can see really it's just the top tax brackets that are seeing meaningful growth while everything else is stagnating.

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As you see from the chart (that I borrowed from you) the more money you have the more you gain and lose. As you can see the recession we had 10 years ago, the top 5% lost a lot and the bottom lost nothing, then when it ended and the top 5% got their money back, the bottom is acting like they should be getting something back also? No! They didn’t lose anything. When the recession hit, those on welfare, or working minimum wage jobs still had their minimum wage jobs and still got their welfare checks; no cut in pay. It would be unfair for them to expect to get more on their welfare checks or an increase on their minimum wage jobs just because the economy improved, and they see the rich who lost millions get their millions back.

rambot said:

Why don't you allow that the middle and lower classes should be GAINING income? Why do you insist that only the top income earners should be getting more?

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Nobody is stoping the middle and lower class from gaining income.

rambot said:

And if we're talking about problems: YOUR problem seems to be that you think the rich are doing "so much good" with their money. And yet, there is likely upwards of several trillion (perhaps more than 10) stored in off shore accounts. That money is doing nothing.
And Trump's huge tax cuts: What happenned to that money? Did it go to job creation or (gasp!) higher wages? Nope.

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Funny you should ask; because they did

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/04/target-raises-its-minimum-wage-to-13-an-hour-aims-for-15-by-2020.html

Target raised it’s minimum wage to $13 per hr

https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurengensler/2018/01/11/walmart-raises-minimum-wage-after-tax-reform/#1348e9eb73c9

Walmart raised it’s minimum wage to $11 per hr, and handed out bonuses of up to $1,000 citing tax cuts. Lots of companies to include AT&T, Boeing, Wells Fargo and others announced raises and bonuses due to the tax cuts.

rambot said:

So....to be clear if we're carrying on with this analogy: The rich DID or did NOT have more on their plate to spill onto the plebians below? Because this sounds like you are playing the opposite little word game as you do with the poor people (but the opposite):
"Sure they are poor but they are not AS poor."
"The rich weren't given MORE money, just less was taken away".

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You were the one playing word games, claiming Trump overloaded the plates of the rich; as if he gave them stuff. Tax cuts do not equal giving someone stuff.

rambot said:

Yeah. You can call it stealing. But if the rich are the ones dictating wages, dictating pay outs to their workers, dictating how much money they THEMSELVES get paid, then I would ABSOLUTELY not call it stealing.
Regardless of the "reasons" the rich get their first, the idea of the rich getting theirs first has also been shown to be a bust for economic systems.

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What do you mean? How do the rich get their money before everybody else? Please explain

I will respond to the rest later

RDKirk said:

That's a significant problem in the US: "Just how poor are you, really?" That's because intertwined into American Christianity is the idea that the poor are poor because they deserve it--that they lack righteousness, or lack faith. "God would have helped you, if you'd have helped yourself." Americans equate wealth with virtue and poverty with vice.

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The deep-seated influence of Calvinism accounts for much of that. Something similar happens in the UK, to a lesser extent.

Ken-1122 said:

As you see from the chart (that I borrowed from you) the more money you have the more you gain and lose. As you can see the recession we had 10 years ago, the top 5% lost a lot and the bottom lost nothing, then when it ended and the top 5% got their money back, the bottom is acting like they should be getting something back also? No! They didn’t lose anything. When the recession hit, those on welfare, or working minimum wage jobs still had their minimum wage jobs and still got their welfare checks; no cut in pay. It would be unfair for them to expect to get more on their welfare checks or an increase on their minimum wage jobs just because the economy improved, and they see the rich who lost millions get their millions back.

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A drop of ~30k-40k (approximately what is shown on that chart for the top 5%) for someone making $350,000/year is equivalent to a drop of $5000 for someone making $50000/year. Which is about what is shown for the middle quintile (the red line). And that's just talking percentages - in real-world impact, a man making $50000 is far more affected by the loss of $5000 than the man making $350000 is affected by the loss of $35000. And the man making $13000 is FAR more affected by the loss of $1300 than either of the other two.

Furthermore, that's income, not savings. Middle class households with limited investments and limited savings were far more affected by the recession - they often didn't have a large enough portfolio to be truly diversified, so the collapse of a single sector hurt some them far more than it hurt the wealthy, who are more able to spread their investments across multiple sectors of the market. The middle class was also forced to dip into retirement savings far more to cover shortfalls in their budgets. Anecdotally, the recession pretty much cleaned my parents out. They kept their house, fortunately, but their retirement account was pretty much emptied by the stock market crash. It put a massive hold on my dad's retirement plans - he's almost 60 now, and he says he can't retire for at least another ten years, if not longer.

rambot said:

[giggle]....but you have done ABSOLUTELY nothing to show that. Their buying power has NOT improved and, as my data shows for the last two years, they are 20$ better off.
And, as stated above, using this "they're better off because of some miniscule amount" really just seems like an attempt at creating justification for your (or other's) enrichment.

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So is it your view that the poor were better off during the recession? I can understand the unproductive poor like those on welfare, but what about the working poor? Do you think the working poor were better off during the recession?

rambot said:

Please forgive me as I re-address a previous point:
"Taking from the rich and giving to the poor is called 'stealing'".
If we were to look just from the 1970s onward, we should notice, very close to a 100% increase in income (I assume that is not to be confused with "compensation"). 100% increase income for the richest. Wow! Lucky them. I would LOVE for my salary to double in value!
Well guess what happenned during that same time period: It has to do with the GDP increase by...."a bunch". Well guess what: the value that an individual worker added to a company increase exponentially and each worker was able to add more income to their company. Well, if that happens, why aren't they getting paid more?
Simple question: If workers create MORE output: Why aren't their pay scales reflecting the increase in their work output? I'm thinking it's because ALLLL that extra income is going to the people at the top.

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The reason workers are able to provide more out put is because of technology of today compared to yesterday. Nail gun vs hammer; backhoe vs shovel. It’s not that the worker is working harder, he is just using equipment that allows him to do more. And this idea that extra money is resulting from using modern equipment is wrong. Any company using technology from the 1970’s would go out of business because the competition uses modern equipment. Again; they are not getting rich by producing twice as much as much as they did in the 1970’s.

rambot said:

I get this point, But again: the rich are ALWAYS the first to get funds.

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How do the rich get their funds first?

rambot said:

Ok, so now I'm SUPER skeptical that you watched my video (or at least that you watched the parts that I have been frequently referring to). So for future reference:

The graph showing "what people thought was an ideal distribution of wealth": Go to 2:40

The graph showing "what people thought was the current situation": Go to 3:18

The graph showing "what the current reality ACTUALLY is":
Go to 3:52

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Yes I remember each of those parts of the video. What does that have to do with the question I asked?

rambot said:

Now, I would love to address the points you make about the video, but I want to make sure we are talking about the same things.

But I can answer this:
"How do you think the top 1% got into a position of owning 40% of the wealth? Do you really think they got that way by taking from everybody else? Seriously; how do you think they got that way?"
Easy. Their workers produced twice as much goods/services and they took ALL the profit and ALL the money from that.

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As I explained before, you have to produce twice as much as they did 40 years ago in order to stay afloat! They aren't getting any extra profit from that.

rambot said:

Then they didn't pass any of it down to their workers; or passed just a pittance down so folks in the middle can say "Hey look, you go more" even though they really didn't.

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Some companies do share profits with the workers, but from my experience this is usually done in lieu of a lower wage. Most would prefer a higher wage without the profit sharing option.

rambot said:

on the backs of their workers, sure.

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Nobody does that, the workers wouldn't stand for it, and they have laws in place against that.

rambot said:

Pffffft. I'm not going to assume you are being obtuse but... Someone pulling in 200g a year managing to become a millionaire is not a sign of a healthy capitalist system.

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I wasn't saying anything about the economy being healthy or not, I was just pointing out the flaw in your claim that you have to have money in order to make money.

rambot said:

fact that they have to survive and have very little liquid assets for nebulous things that they don't understand, like investing.

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As I said before, not everybody is cut out to be rich.

rambot said:

Your argument comes VERY close to saying exactly that. Remember: "isn't 17000 better than 18000?"

not those numbers but, so long as their is improvement in supposed to think the system is healthy ..non?

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A little gain is better than no gain at all. If you don't think so, then we can agree to disagree on that one.

rambot said:

I want to see if I understand your argument.
So a billionaire (just 1 billion) loses 15% of his wealth in the stock market. Now he only has 850million in assets.
The poor persons who may have 800$ in assets and gets paid 18gs a year didn't lose anything
So you argument is that the wage gap is smaller?

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The wealth gap is smaller; yes.

RocksInMyHead said:

A drop of ~30k-40k (approximately what is shown on that chart for the top 5%) for someone making $350,000/year is equivalent to a drop of $5000 for someone making $50000/year. Which is about what is shown for the middle quintile (the red line). And that's just talking percentages - in real-world impact, a man making $50000 is far more affected by the loss of $5000 than the man making $350000 is affected by the loss of $35000. And the man making $13000 is FAR more affected by the loss of $1300 than either of the other two.

Furthermore, that's income, not savings. Middle class households with limited investments and limited savings were far more affected by the recession - they often didn't have a large enough portfolio to be truly diversified, so the collapse of a single sector hurt some them far more than it hurt the wealthy, who are more able to spread their investments across multiple sectors of the market. The middle class was also forced to dip into retirement savings far more to cover shortfalls in their budgets. Anecdotally, the recession pretty much cleaned my parents out. They kept their house, fortunately, but their retirement account was pretty much emptied by the stock market crash. It put a massive hold on my dad's retirement plans - he's almost 60 now, and he says he can't retire for at least another ten years, if not longer.

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You make some good points, but our discussion was not about who is more affected during a recession, we were discussing how much the rich makes during the recovery vs the middle income and poor.

Ken-1122 said:

So is it your view that the poor were better off during the recession? I can understand the unproductive poor like those on welfare, but what about the working poor? Do you think the working poor were better off during the recession?

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no. I have said the working poor have remained at essentially same spot. Because that is what the data shows.
You keep referring to the recovery. I am talking the growing disparity since the 1980s.

reason workers are able to provide more out put is because of technology of today compared to yesterday. Nail gun vs hammer; backhoe vs shovel. It’s not that the worker is working harder, he is just using equipment that allows him to do more. And this idea that extra money is resulting from using modern equipment is wrong. Any company using technology from the 1970’s would go out of business because the competition uses modern equipment. Again; they are not getting rich by producing twice as much as much as they did in the 1970’s.

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My first response is so what? Workers are working to generate a greater profit. What would be ethically objectionable about them getting a proportional income or something similar to everyone working there?
My second is that I am completely lost. It seems you contradict yourself by saying
"It’s not that the worker is working harder, he is just using equipment that allows him to do more" and then
"Again; they are not getting rich by producing twice as much as much as they did in the 1970’s"

Yes I remember each of those parts of the video. What does that have to do with the question I asked?

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About as little as your question about those graphs that I recall

Some companies do share profits with the workers, but from my experience this is usually done in lieu of a lower wage. Most would prefer a higher wage without the profit sharing option.

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probably because they would only be offered a paltry amount.

RocksInMyHead said:

It does still happen - an old acquaintance of mine was hired on the contingency that she finish her Masters (and the company paid for it). In exchange, she had to sign a contract that she would work for them for five years.

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Hmm, I remember hearing something about how if you don't like your job you can just get a new one. Interesting how that claim lines up with how it actually happens to people with actual jobs.

RDKirk said:

But my point here is that "what seemed like 100s or 1000s of scholarships" is mostly nickels and dimes. It takes a very consistent, serious, no-nonsense effort to get a college degree out of them, and the odds of failure and being forced out of school when the money runs dry is a constant pressure.

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My "let's optimize this process" side is wondering if she wouldn't have been better off just working as waitstaff part time, given the $/hr return. Granted, the experience helped her get a job and that's hard to measure.

I'll also note that tuition has gone up way quicker than inflation in the past few decades, so neither approach might work well now.

KCfromNC said:

My "let's optimize this process" side is wondering if she wouldn't have been better off just working as waitstaff part time, given the $/hr return. Granted, the experience helped her get a job and that's hard to measure.

I'll also note that tuition has gone up way quicker than inflation in the past few decades, so neither approach might work well now.

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When I started college as a freshman in the early 70s, my tuition at the University of Oklahoma was $25 per credit hour. I had a part-time job earning $2.50 per credit hour. It took me half a semester working part time to pay the tuition of a 12-14 credit hour semester.

Today in that same university, tuition is $400 per credit hour. To do what I did in the early 70s, a freshman would have to earn $40 an hour working part time. I'm not sure that's possible outside the sex and narcotics trades.

RDKirk said:

Today in that same university, tuition is $400 per credit hour. To do what I did in the early 70s, a freshman would have to earn $40 an hour working part time. I'm not sure that's possible outside the sex and narcotics trades.

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So what I'm hearing is that students who don't do this are just lazy and unmotivated

Also, you didn't include "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps" as a part-time job option. I've heard that's particularly popular advice in certain circles.

So much magical thinking! It's hard to even know where to start.